*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

This little stretch of sweepers is quite a bit of fun and a nice way to skirt a large section of Interstate 5. While it’s 35 mile per hour speed limit causes it to be a rather leisurely way to cover this distance, it is also fairly empty and doesn’t appear to be heavily patrolled.

South Military Road route is veritably lined with evergreen trees. I estimate there is at most an eight foot buffer between the road and the forest in most sections. The buffer does help quite a bit in spotting the numerous deer that line the road. If the deer are hiding in the tree line in preparation for their kamikaze dash in front of your bike, you’re going to have very little response time before impact.

One note of caution for those looking to blast down this road at wildly extra-legal speeds, I’ve never seen any evidence of repaving in the years that I’ve been riding this road down to Portland. It looks like a very old alignment of US 99 that has been asphalted over, tar-snaked as needed, and otherwise left to slowly rot in place.

Like Jackson Highway, this road is another great means to avoid the thundering herd on 5 and take a more relaxed 4th-gear approach to traveling. This scenery isn’t spectacular and the service sparse, but your blood pressure will likely be much lower on this road. Just look out for the deer.

As you arrive east of Vader, things are a little different. Starting where Military Road crosses over Route 507, the road changes its name to Westside Highway and is still a state highway in this area. This road is maintained much better, and is far more frequently traveled. Obviously, it has less curves and wider lanes, but is still a pretty good way to avoid the lunacy that is
Interstate 5 in the late afternoon.

As you get to the terminus of SR411 at Kelso, you’ll need to head back east on SR4 to get across the river and back to I-5. If you’re heading south, you can go straight at SR4 and continue skirting around Longview and cross over the Columbia to Oregon via SR433.

• Towns: Napavine, Vader, Longview, Castle Rock, Winlock
• Length: 33 miles
• Counties: Lewis, Cowlitz

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State Route 9 is one of Washington State’s finer examples of a rural highway. The curves are well-engineered and most of the curves have very good visibility. The pavement is very hig-quality, to the point of being in a shockingly well-maintained state from the viewpoint of this jaded Seattle moto-commuter.

There’s also no lack of scenery along SR9. All along this route you can simply turn your head to the east and take in the farmlands and ridges with the Cascade Range peaks as their backdrop.

Mt. Baker in the distance

North of Sedro Wooley, SR9 is a very fine road tailor-made for tearing up curves and covering ground. The curves are often linked 3-4 deep with gentle banking and neutral radius. Even more delightful is the 50mph speed limit outside the villages. The State Patrol often seems to place all of their emphasis on the parallel Interstate 5 freeway 15 miles away.

Speaking of high-quality road surface, the pavement is not only very smooth but also very grippy. It’s quite obviously been re-paved in the past year or two, as the road hasn’t been covered up with any tar snakes or become polished by traffic or numerous hot/cold cycles.

A brief straightaway south of Acme.

I’ve ridden this road on a couple different bikes now as well. This road is quite well-suited to sporting standards such as the FZ6 and the DL650 V-strom. While still quite enjoyable on larger/heavier bikes such as my old v4 Sabre 1100, the abrupt nature of some of the corner entries require a slightly more relaxed pace from less sporting machine.

One thing to keep in mind is that section south of Sedro-Wooley down toward Arlington is much more agricultural in nature than the north end. The curves are less-frequently wide sweepers or even twisties, but more in the vein of alternating 90-degree turns from the old farm to markey road that they must have preceded the current roadway. The corners have been smoothed out slightly, but are still 20-25mph 2nd gear turns compared to the 35-45mph twisties and speed-limit restricted 50-ish mph sweepers north of Sedro Wooley.

MS Streets & Trips file for Washington SR9

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Washington State Route 20, the North Cascades Highway, is the northern-most route across the Washington section of the Cascade Range. The first path to be surveyed, it was last to be completed and the most difficult.

Containing several sections of wonderful curves, SR 20 ascends the western foothills of the Cascades to Rainy Pass via the Skagit River, Ross Lake, and Ruby and Granite Creeks. The road winds and curves most delightfully across the width of the Cascades into Omak where SR20 multi-plexes with US97.

A fairly typical sweeper on Route 20.

Near the town of Concrete, SR20 passes within a few miles of Mt. Baker, and Lake Shannon is immediately to the north. Throughout most of its length, SR20 passes through the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and lands held by various other conservatory agencies.

A view towards the Northern Cascades from a wide sweeper west of Winthrop.

Between Twisp and Washington Pass, SR20 follows the floor of the Methow Valley and the Okanogan National Forest. The area abounds with campgrounds, small lakes, hunting, swimming, even a golf course south-east of Winthrop. While you may not be able to partake in the use of the area’s many boat ramps, they might be good for those looking for a full-feature weekend with an RV, boat, and some dual-sport bikes.

A very steep roadside rock formation at the east end of Route 20 near Diablo. Courtesy of Ted Timmons.

Indeed, many of my friends and acquaintances who hail from this area seem to spend as much if not more of their two-wheeled recreation time on the area’s hundreds of miles of Forest Service roads.

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An interesting side road will take you up into the small town of Mineral. It’s a far more twisty road than SR7 with very short sightlines.

The north end of the road is particularly aggressive with the road making a nearly continuous climb up the north face of the ridge the village of Mineral it sited on. The pavement isn’t in terrible shape, but it’s apparent that large recreational vehicles and trailers frequently go up this road.

The south turnoff is about 13 miles north of US 12, and the north turnoff is less than a mile south of the River Crossing at Elbe. If memory serves, there’s a neat abandoned power station by that turn-off.

• Towns: Elbe (nearby), Mineral, Carlson (abandoned)
• Length: 5 miles
• County: Lewis

Microsoft Streets & Trips file for Mineral Hill Road

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South Skagit Highway and Concrete-Sauk Valley Road provide a very scenic back way from Sedro Wooley to the Mountain Loop Highway and south to Darrington. On the cool September that marked the day ride portion of ‘Pass the Oyster’ 2004, the road was dry and nearly deserted. The auturn leaves lined the trees and the sides of the road, but had been cleared from most of the corners by other traffic. A few corners had lines of gravel outside of the cager wheel lines, but the even these were a mere handful on this recently chip-sealed road as it skirts the Cultus Mountains and Rinker Ridge along the Skagit River.

Old Pastureland along South Skagit Highway

For most of its length, the S. Skagit and Concrete-Sauk Valley Roads follow the Sauk and Skagit Rivers. The rivers provide a very nice scenic backdrop for this spectacular road with its consistent chain of sweepers and sharp corners. Keep an eye out for pedestrains during good fishing weather, and keep an eye out for errant domestic animals tortting along the road. I almost hit a hunting dog of some sort that darted from the side of the road directly at the front wheel of the bike.

View of the Concrete-Sauk Valley Road section from up along Finney Creek Road.

Full services are available each end of the road way. Sedro Wooley is just a mile or so away across the Skagit from the north end. Darrington is about 5 miles from the south end and has a very good gas station, although the air compressor was broken at the Shell when we were there. When we stopped in Darrington, there was a Goldwing group riding through that was duplicating our loop but in the opposite direction: North on 530 to Concrete-Sauk Valley Road and on into Sedro Wooley on S. Skagit Highway. I’m sure it was a much slower pace than we were able to maintain through the nearly-deserted and unpatrolled curves.

• Towns: Clear Lake, Concrete (across river bridge)
• Length: 46
• County: Skagit

Microsoft Streets and Trips file for South Skagit Highway / Concrete-Sauk Valley Road

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